After that no power on earth could have kept them apart, and on Thursday they were to sail together for the outer fringes. Gerson was busily bidding his friends goodbye.
"You may hear of me from time to time. You'll never see me again—this side the veil at all events. We'll hope to meet on the other side," he said heartily, and grudged every day that lay between him and his work.
Blair, in telling Mr. and Mrs. MacTavish of his reception at the Greenock church, incidentally mentioned Miss Arnot, but doubted evidently whether they would know anything of her.
But the old man laughed gently, and said, in his quiet, old-fashioned, precise way, which was the very antithesis of the Rev. Archibald's jovial utterances: "I will explain to you now, my dear boy, what at the time I deemed wisest to treasure within the repository of my own heart. It was from Miss Jean Arnot that I first heard about you. It was in consequence of her delighted account of her meeting with you, and the Euclid and the Latin grammar, that I sought you out on the hillside and tendered you the helping hand of which you have made such excellent use."
"It was Miss Arnot?" said the young man in amazement.
"Truly, yes! Though I do not for a moment suppose she knows anything whatever about it. I certainly never told her, and I never told you, because I had been a studious herd-laddie myself, and I knew what shy and hypersensitive colts they are, and the delicacy necessary to their proper handling."
"I thank you for telling me now, sir. It is as I would have it."
"I believe it would please her to know what you told me, sir," Blair broke out abruptly a little later on, and the old gentleman smiled at the evidence of the track of his thoughts.
"I will write and tell her, if you like, if you really think the knowledge would afford her any gratification."
"I think it would, sir."